Hm. Obscure. Intriguing. Okay. Then briefly down a rabbit hole I learn that Saint Isidore of Seville is the patron saint of "the Internet, computer users, computer technicians, programmers, students"[0]
* Saint Bartholomew was skinned alive - he is the patron saint of butcher, tanners, book binders etc.
* John the Apostle was boiled alive - he is the patron saint of burn victims
* Simon the Zealot was sawed in half - he is the patron saint of sawyers, lumberjacks and curriers (leather tanners who specialize in shaping and stretching leather)
* St Sebastian was shot full of arrows, recovered, an beaten to death by a bunch of clubs by the emperor's soldiers - he's the saint of archers and soldiers
* St Barbara was tortured and then beheaded, when they were carting her body off, the cart was struck by lighting, catching fire - she's the patron saint of firefighters, artillerymen, and those who work with explosives
* St Lawrence got cooked to death over hot coals. After being roasted for a while, he told his executioner "I'm done on this side, turn me over" - patron saint of cooks and barbeque and comedians
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/b9u3d8/statue_of_sain...
I find it deeply amusing how much Mankind loves polytheism and yet most of today's major religions are monotheistic.
And I don't think it's a stretch to assume that this is where the Christian cult of the saints derives from. Especially when you look at some of those saints, and see how they have effectively overlapped with some pagan deity from older times. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Pagan_associations_and_...
There's a number of problems with that explanation, the three most obvious of which are Ss. Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel.
And at the same time, there is something in humanity that recoils from such a thing, so we personify this impersonal vastness and power with a pantheon that gives. . . a more comfortable and familiar user experience.
And of course it's not limited to Christianity. Buddhism is non-theistic (in the Western sense), and yet there's a pantheon of Buddhas of past and future eras, tantric meditation deities, emanations, incarnations, benevolent devas, etc. Tibetan Buddhism in particular innovates deeply into this territory.
While certainly most people are monotheistic, it's really just two religions, and they worship the same god.
Polytheism seems deeply default.
Almost every culture that develops religion independently develops a polytheistic religion. Those almost never morph into monotheistic religions.
The numbers of adherents are just dominated by Christianity and Islam, which are by no coincidence the principle proselytising religions in history. In fact proselytism was historically rarely observed outside of those two religions.
>His fame after his death was based on his Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopedia which assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost.
That time as Christianity was forming itself is so interesting to look at if you were raised in a particular sect - the idea that there is any truly singular deity-preferred way to live seems laughable given how many differences of opinion there was even in the earliest church - frequently the only justification is that because a set of ideas succeeded it must be right, in a sort of might makes right sense.
The real roast is always in the comments. I like to imagine that it wasn't so much a transcription error as it was a bored monk looking for some variety.
According to Wikipedia his story is apocryphal.